Maia’s Demise

Rich Nichols looks at what went wrong with Maia, the Villanova market/coffee shop/bistro/fine dining restaurant, as if all those slashes weren’t evidence enough.

A post-mortem is rarely pleasant. In Maia’s case, it is searingly painful.

The Main Liners who’d had such high hopes, even bringing the menus from their favorite Palm Beach haunts for guidance, were left feeling crushed.

Staffers broke into tears recounting the painful unraveling. And at least some of the partners were so mad, they could spit: “I was just over there cleaning up,” said Jerry Holtz of Provco, the real estate-investment group and part-owner. “And I found one of those ‘You are here’ maps, like in a mall. That said it all. This place was way too confusing.”

Like a huge souffle, Main Line’s Maia falls [Philadelphia Inquirer]